First go at an operating arch topped window

[Keith Mathewson]

This is my first attempt at making an operating arched window. I did almost everything by hand and made many mistakes along the way. Hand sticking the profiles led to variations in the moulding and aggravating chip out on the short grain sections. The curved pieces are steam bent and profiled. If I had a router bit with a matching profile about half way through I most likely would have used it. Working small curved pieces by hand is a challenge. It gives me a greater respect to the guys who did it in the past. Chip out was a MAJOR problem. Climb cutting on a shaper with a feeder is almost foolproof. Shaping by hand and one begins to feel the fool. At a certain point I resolved to fill some of the chipped out bits.

Another thing I would do differently would be to simply cope all of the meeting members instead of half lapping. Trying to half lap two meeting curved parts was interesting. Still have the screen to make before it can be installed. It has been a lot of time invested in a bathroom window.

[Tom M King]

Looks great! I've worked on many old, handmade sash, including a couple of giant arched ones. There is always a lot of "chip out" on them-even the ones with all straight parts. Not many people, but us, look at them that closely.

[Mel Fulks]

Looks real good! I've made them two or three times, you don't get a lot of orders but they seem to always be large
orders like 16 or so. Never heard of half lapping the bars but I'm sure it makes a good job ! I used glue and small brads.
Today I would use the PL Polyurethane adhesive. My favorite wood for them is North Eastern white pine used " bark side to weather"

[Jim Koepke]

Looks great from here.

Did you take any build pics? They would likely be of interest others beside myself.

jtk

[Keith Mathewson]

Nice to know that chip out was a challenge for others as well.

pics of steam bending the bars.

Jim,
I didn't take a pics of this but I have some of other projects which use the same techniques.

[Keith Mathewson]

Fitting the bars

[Keith Mathewson]

The inspiration and the reality. Your milage may vary

[Jim Koepke]

Thanks for the pics Keith.

jtk

[Derek Cohen]

Tremendous!

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Tom M King]

I'm not understanding your terminology with "half-lap", and "coping". That looks like a typical coped joint to me, with a stub tenon. That's close to exactly the way all the old ones I've worked on was done, and almost exactly (down to the type of dividers) the way I do it. How did you cut the cope?

[Mel Fulks]

Keith, I did them using a spring hold down. Cut the rabbets first raising the knives several times,since square cuts are
the grabiest. Then I flip them over and do the "sticking" in one pass. On most things I like to cut every set up with same
side on the table, but by getting all material dressed at one time any variation is pretty small. And ,of course, the bedding putty
helps in evening out small variations .

[Keith Mathewson]

Mel,
when I used to do this for a customer I’d run them on a shaper. Fast, consistent and you could produce a hundred yards in short order. Now I make one offs for myself and do as much by hand as possible. I enjoy doing it and it keeps me at the shop and out from under my wife’s feet.

[Keith Mathewson]

Tom,
the red sections are half lapped in order to have the bar run full length. The blue pieces are coped as are the green ones. I’m not sure I really needed to have them run full length however the window hinges in and will be stopped by a chain. This is going into a rental house so I may not relieve the gentlest of care.

[Tom M King]

That's similar to the old ones I've seen. They'd pick one set to run full length. The others were tenoned into mortises in the long glazing bars, but where they ran into the longevity problem was by taking all the wood in the mortises. I've seen those broken in multiple different buildings, and are almost always the ones that need to be replaced. I started making the mortises not the full width of the "shoulder" (I call it-say 1/4", and not the full 3/8" of the typical house muntins), and leaving a 1/16" of wood in the bottom of the mortises from each side.

I probably have a full set of bits for that Ovolo pattern, if the muntins are 3/4" wide.

[Mel Fulks]

When I asked about mortising the bars....many years ago, I was told that they had tried that and rejected it because
they rotted faster. I don't believe that now and didn't believe it then. But they stayed together just fine without mortises. Not too many
years ago a guy brought in a half circle transom that was obviously made by hand. Real close grained heart cypress and
there was nothing wrong with it ! Had a couple of open cracks that could be easily filled. He wanted us to replace it !
I'm proud to say I told him it was a nice old piece of work, and refused to take the order.

[Frederick Skelly]

What a great project! I think it looks really good! Congratulations!
Fred

[Tom M King]

Here is a picture that has some of the large mortised glazing bars, from 1796, and my structural change on a replacement. Rotting wasn't the problem, but strength was-especially on the ones that didn't have straight grain.

http://historic-house-restoration.com/images/windows4_012.JPG

[Mike Allen1010]

Keith, fantastic work! thanks for posting, I hope you'll post more of your work!

Your window is a gorgeous piece of super functional wood work that anyone would be proud to have in their home. I particularly admire your your ability to execute the curved pieces. As much as I appreciate the aesthetic beauty of the curved elements, all the equipment/skills needed for steam bending (steam box, forms, clamps, lots of muscle power) have always discouraged me from giveing it a try. Reality is I need to man up an not be afraid to try something new.

I confess I don't understand all the terminology (glazing bars?) . Your pic of batch of windows you made is really inspirational. I would love to be able to do something similar as part of renovation for older craftsman style home. Even though I'm comfortable doing most of the interior trim, built ins, etc. myself, windows like yours seems like for me candidate for purchase from manufacturer.

Given the complex cross section seems like a perfect job for high powered shaper? I'm interested in your thoughts about what a " break even" point might be- e.g. what is # of linear feet of mouldings/dividers where it make more sense to transition for hand tools to machines, if at all?

Keith, great work, look forward to seeing more of your stuff.

best, Mike

[Jerry Olexa]

very nice work and results..... THANKS

[Keith Mathewson]

Tom,
I like your change. It never occurred to me to reduce the size of the mortise to increase strength.

Mike,
Thanks. I don't believe you can be more efficient using handtools. I can produce a better product at a faster rate using machines, I do it this way because I'm no longer driven by the profit incentive. When I was I used one shaper for the sticking and one for the coping. Once the machines were set up you could have the most inexperienced person in the shop run them. With curved work there was always some hand work but I tried to keep it to a minimum.

[Tom M King]

I don't know if my terminology is considered correct, or not. We call the long ones, that go all the way, and contain the mortises "glazing bars". The short ones, with a tenon on each end are called "muntins". It works for my crew. Once the sash are made, no one cares.

My break-even point, on whether to order custom cutters, or not, is if I need to make four, or fewer, or more than four. I only make exact reproductions of old ones, and they rarely work out for stock cutters. A set of bits like I use costs about $1800. For just a couple of sash, we'll make them completely by hand, even if it requires a modification to an old molding plane.

[Mel Fulks]

[QUOTE=Tom M King;2962771]I don't know if my terminology is considered correct, or not. We call the long ones, that go all the way, and contain the mortises "glazing bars". The short ones, with a tenon on each end are called "muntins". It works for my crew. Once the sash are made, no one cares.QUOTE]
Im in VA and here it's "bars" and "muntins"

[Keith Mathewson]

Update: Window is now complete and ready for finish. I hide glue chipped the glass for privacy. Hope to install after Thanksgiving weekend.

[Keith Mathewson]

Image quality is very poor on this site, not sure why.

[Jim Koepke]

Even with the poor quality of the image it looks great.

jtk